Shirley Murphy - Cat Fear No Evil

They had been trying all evening to get her, calling both the house and her cell phone. Clyde wished he had started calling that morning. Both he and Wilma had been waiting for more information, for the sheriff to find the bodies, for some assurance the old couple had indeed been killed. Then when he tried to get Kate this evening, busy signal. "I left a dozen messages on her cell phone. Why the hell doesn't she check her messages!"

Joe said, "Maybe by now she's had the TV on. If it's been on the news, she…"

Again Clyde hit the redial. If she had seen the news, if she knew, maybe she was talking with Wilma.

He got another busy. Five minutes passed as he tried to work, patiently lifting Joe's gray paw to check a price, peering under a gray ear to retrieve a parts number.

"Try again," Joe said. "I'm worried about her."

Clyde tried three more times before Kate's phone rang. Just one ring, and she picked up. Clyde left the speaker on so Joe wouldn't crowd him pressing against the phone. "Kate? You okay?"

"No, I'm not okay. Did you…"

"You heard the news."

"This can't have happened. It's impossible to believe. What were they doing out on the highway in the middle of the night? If they'd had some emergency, say one of them got sick, they'd have called the medics. Or the sheriff. Or a cab. They'd been staying in a campground, they could have called the manager. Have you talked with anyone up there? The highway patrol? The Sonoma County sheriff? What have they found? Couldn't it be some kind of mistake? The wrong RV. Or maybe they-"

Clyde said, "Wilma talked with the sheriff. They've had a crew there all day going through the wreckage."

"And?"

"They- So far, no bodies. Nothing much at all left." He glanced at Joe. "It was a terrible fire, Kate. Ashes, rubble. The truck driver… they did find his body, in his crashed truck. The truck wasn't burned as badly as the RV."

Kate was silent for a long time. When she spoke again, her voice was very small. "They were so happy together. Their late marriage was like a fairy tale, like one of their Old-World folktales. It isn't fair. They were having such a good time traveling. And planning to build their dream house…"

Clyde stared at the phone.

"It's all wrong," Kate said. "Their campsite hadn't been vacated, they left canvas chairs, a folding table set up under the pines. The late news said some towels were left hanging on a portable line, an expensive bear-proof garbage can."

The fur along Joe Grey's spine felt rigid. His paws were cold as he sorted through the facts-Lucinda and Pedric heading for San Francisco to stay with Kate, Lucinda with the same kind of jewelry that Consuela had gone to steal from Kate and that the appraiser had tried to buy.

Moving closer to the phone, Joe placed a paw on Clyde's hand, staring at the speaker.

Clyde scowled and shoved the phone at him.

"In spite of this mess," Joe said into the speaker, "one seemingly unrelated question. Did you get there in time?"

"I did," she said sadly. "I moved it all, thanks to you. I wanted to call but I… Joe, that cat has been here. Inside my apartment."

"The cat can't hurt you, Kate." He paused. He wasn't sure of that. "But Consuela could," he said staring at the phone. This whole gig made him edgy; this stuff was happening too far away, and there were too many loose pieces, events that didn't add up. "Come home, Kate. Come back to the village now." He glanced at Clyde. "You can stay with us."

Clyde looked surprised, then nodded.

"And I've been followed," Kate said.

"Followed where? When was this? Consuela? Who?"

"A man. I…"

Clyde nudged Joe away from the speaker. "Did you report it to the police? Do you know him?"

"I… No. And I didn't report it, not yet."

"Why not?" Clyde snapped. "Never mind. Kate, get a second appraisal on the jewelry. This is all too weird."

"Emerson Bristol has an excellent reputation, Clyde. He's a big name in the city."

"You researched the subject," Clyde said. "You know that such unusual work, made by a master craftsman, ought to be cataloged somewhere. Even if it is paste. You said you've been through all the catalogs, the books in San Francisco Public and in the museums. Don't you think it's strange that there's absolutely no mention of it?"

"Yes," she said in a small voice.

"I don't like this. Joe's right. Come home, Kate. Bring that stuff down here to someone in the village-someone Harper recommends."

"I have so much work, installations…"

"Come home, Kate. Come now."

"I… After tonight, I feel all in pieces. Will you call me when you know more about Lucinda and Pedric? More about what happened?"

Clyde sighed. "I'll call you."

"And… there's something else," she said. "I almost forgot. Likely it's nothing, but… I threw out some newspapers when I was cleaning up, but I saved one. It was dated three days before Charlie's gallery opening. There was a jewel robbery here, on Market Street. A cheap, touristy kind of place. It happened around six in the evening, just before the shop closed. The police got there before the three men could get away. They arrested two, but the third man got a cop down and escaped. The paper said he took a hard blow to the forehead, the store owner hit him with a brick. It's probably coincidence," Kate said, "but I…"

"Harper is checking the police records for fights," Clyde said with interest. "For batterings, anything like that. He's sure to catch it, but I'll tell him. Save the paper, the date. And come home, Kate. Where it's safe. We all miss you."

"I'll think about it, Clyde. Good-night, you guys." Her voice was weepy. "Good-night," she whispered. "I guess I feel better."

When Clyde hung up, Joe dropped off the desk and leaped to Clyde's new leather easy chair that sat before the fire. Clyde had brought the Molena Point Gazette upstairs with him. The Greenlaw accident filled the upper half of the front page. Scanning the article, he saw with disappointment that it gave no more information than the TV news had supplied.

The lower half of the page was devoted to Saturday night's clothing store burglary. Alice's Mirror had been relieved of its highest-priced stock. There was no sign of forced entry. The theft hadn't been discovered until this morning when the owner opened the store for the usual Sunday tourists.

Joe sat staring into the fire, wondering how much he should tell Clyde. It was just this morning, the morning after the Greenlaw accident, that Kit had told Joe himself, and Dulcie, about the missing key.

After their night on Hellhag Hill, Joe had awakened very late, alone in the rumpled bed. The bedside clock said 8:15, half the day gone, from any cat's point of view. Clyde would long ago have gone to work. Joe was crawling out from among the tangled sheets when the phone rang. He didn't knock the bedside phone from its cradle, but trotted through to the study. Leaping to the desk, he listened as the machine answered.

Only one word was spoken. "Joe?" Dulcie hissed.

He hit the speaker. "Damen residence."

"Jolly's," she said softly and immediately hung up.

He hit the erase button and was out of there, leaping to the rafter above the desk and up through his rooftop cat door.

Pausing in his private tower for a drink of water, he raced out across the shingles, then along an oak branch, across slanting and angled roofs until he was forced to descend to the sidewalk, at the divided lanes and grassy median of Ocean Avenue. Crossing Ocean among the feet of a group of tourists, he shied away from their reaching hands. What a smart cat, crossing the street with us… Cute kitty … Do you think he's lost? We could… Dodging away, he headed for Jolly's alley. Dulcie's voice had sounded desperate. All manner of disasters, most of them involving the kit, had raced through his tomcat mind as he swerved along the sidewalks and at last into Jolly's alley.